This embroidery artist takes her work on the road
An interview with Harriet Riddell, who's created a mobile free-motion embroidery set-up to connect with people around the world through textile art. Plus all the details on the homemade gifts I gave.
Happy 2025! I’m going to share my sewing plans for the year in my next newsletter because I wanted to spend this one highlighting the homemade gifts I gave, plus my haul of all second-hand, ethical and/or small business crafting purchases while I was in Portland, Oregon. Plus one of the favorite presents I received, a perfect item to give a sewist!
Two of my very good friends are having their first baby in January and are designing a swamp-themed nursery. I’m not the most experienced quilter but enjoyed the challenge of making the “P is for Pond” quilt from So Fresh Quilts. Special thanks to my mom, a highly-skilled quilter, for all her advice, and to my boyfriend for the pictures (though I didn’t realize I’m holding the quilt in the wrong direction).
For the young folks in my life, I made these vintage sleeping dogs to hold your PJs during the day or other goodies (my sister cleverly suggested using them to sneak candy into a movie theater). I was inspired by Martha of Buried Diamond and still want the pattern she used for hers.
For friends and family, I made 14! versions of the Cowgirl Boot Stocking from Material Grrrlz, who I interviewed last year about starting craft meet-ups. This is a great scrap-busting project and is accessible for a beginner sewer.
My best friend’s birthday falls near Christmas, so I also made her the Cool Stiches Craft Case with fabric from Petit Pan, one of my favorite French companies.
While in the US, I also did some serious craft shopping. I love SCRAP Portland and the Village Merchant for fabric and sewing supplies. Many cities have creative reuse stores and I highly suggest checking them out, not only to be more sustainable but also because second-hand is much cheaper than buying new. You never know what you’ll find.
My haul included patterns; fabric; a bag-making kit; many cover-your-own-button kits (which are great when you can’t find the right button for a project); SO many zippers (much cheaper to buy in bulk because if you sew enough, they’ll find a use eventually); plastic quilt templates; buttons; and most notably, a partially-finished beautiful embroidered pouch with bird and flowers.
I also stopped by some favorite local shops, including Josephine’s Dry Goods; Ritual Dyes, where my boyfriend bought me the lovely green Merchant & Mills linen as a present; and the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store. As someone who spent my teen and college years in Oregon, I can’t believe I’d never gone to the Pendleton outlet before. I loved seeing that every remnant of the wool is used or sold for scraps and am looking forward to sewing the Fiber Mood Madou Jacket with the piece I bought.
Finally, my mom gifted me what every sewer needs in their arsenal: personalized clothing tags. (September Gurl is a reference to my birth month and the song “September Gurl”). For those interested, she bought them from the Dutch Label Shop.
Scrap pile
I now want to interview Marcia Riddington, a 72 -year-old sewing influencer with 70,000+ Instagram followers: "I love [my clothes] to have a story - I just think it's so much nicer than something brand new, straight out of a factory."
I love this LA Times documentary on three quilters in the American West.
Seamwork released two new patterns: the Basil Jacket and the Eden Shirt.
Cashmerette put out the Glover Jean Jacket.
More in layering (it is that time of year), check out the recent Tea Wrap Jacket from Afrayed Clothing.
Softy Supply released it first pattern with the cute and practical Cozy Bopeep.
And there are lots of different versions of the Ginkgo Pinafore from Madswick Studio.
I am always this friend:
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Jokes aside, I would make and wear this vest:
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One of the most impressive thrift flips I’ve seen:
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Threading the needle with Harriet Riddell
Every edition of Sew You Have a Question features a Threading the needle interview with someone in the textile arts world who’s brain I want to pick. This time, I was so happy to chat with Harriet Riddell, a globe-trotting whiz in free-motion embroidery, in which the sewing machine is used as a sort of pen with endless creative potential.
What's your background in textile arts?
I studied contemporary applied arts at the University of Hertfordshire, a mixed media art degree. My mum taught me how to sew when I was 5 and my grandmother taught me how to free-motion embroider when I was 10. My love of drawing with a sewing machine was born in the 3rd year of my degree, when I started to draw the naked models in life drawing in stitch.
How does your embroidery practice help build connections with people?
Working in the public eye demystifies the making process. People can watch the art come alive before their eyes. I often interact with people as I work and incorporate words they say or images of them. I have a bicycle that can be pedaled by passersby. This allows the audience to power the art. I love this because when they come back with a friend, they point to areas and say “I did this bit.”
Depending on where I set up will dictate my audience. It can be a lot of fun challenging people's preconceptions of what I should be doing on my sewing machine. I love meeting and connecting with people. This can happen whilst I'm working but also backstage too, when I am on route to a place or the people/family I stay with when on a stitch adventure. It all feeds into the work.
What projects are you working on now?
Taking a deep breath. I had a busy 2024. I did a residency in Taiwan, documenting rehearsals for a religious procession. It was fun to be a part of this significant cultural event. Despite being a foreigner, it was moving to feel a tiny part of the action and witness the nooks and crannies of the late-night gatherings of the community. I've also been working on a re-wilding theme and celebrating nature in my work. I am a big fan of being outdoors and in nature. I live in the woods in a self-built home, so spend a lot of time close to the trees. Till now, my work has mostly been about people, place and culture. So it's been fun to explore re-wilding for an exhibition earlier in the year. I was one of 13 artists who spent two weekends immersing ourselves at Knepp, a rewilding project in West Sussex. Isabella Tree wrote a book called Wilding. Knepp is her estate. I ended up making two chairs about ragwort and thistles, two underdogs of our ecosystem. I guess I like my work to be a little cheeky, and I found these to be two very good subjects for my chairs. Isabella Tree thought so too and bought my ragwort chair.
A video of you sewing in the woods in your wagon recently went viral. How does your environment inspire you?
I love capturing my location through my stitch lense. Depending on where I work, I try to capture my surroundings authentically. My location is everything. It feeds energy into my stitched lines. If my subject matter is in front of me, or live over a Zoom call, all I can do is honestly capture what I see and feel. This changes enormously if I work from photographs. I find photos can be very restricting. Since having my baby boy, traveling the world is less doable. I can go but for shorter times, so I am exploring new ways of working. I feel I’m in a period of transition. I have been playing with scale and working with a laser cutter to make larger works. This has been fun. I guess that’s the key, to have fun and have adventures within the process of making my art.
Can you talk about your technical setup? What sewing machine(s) do you use and how did you make them bicycle powered?
First, I figured out I could use a motorcycle battery and an inverter — this was a huge game changer, I took my portable table and chair and invertor to India, Kenya and Vietnam.
I stitched at Glastonbury Festival, and I found my batteries kept dying so I thought I could create a bicycle and people could pedal to power their portrait. Electric Pedals based in Peckham came to my rescue and made a bicycle that directly powers the sewing machine. No batteries. So if you have a lot of momentum and I am stitching fast, you'll feel my stitches in the pedals. I love that. But it does mean I always need someone on the bicycle when I am working in remote areas, which can make things challenging, or stop if no one is willing to cycle!
I love my vintage Bernina sewing machine, however it does draw more electricity than a newer Husqvarna or Janome, so I tend to use a new machine if I am feeling nice to my pedalers!
What tips do you have for people interested in getting into free-motion embroidery?
Relax and draw, sketch with pen and paper, sketch with thread and canvas.
Don't make things perfect. Start with the ambition of throwing it away. No pen lines, just go in free. Look at something in your room and stitch it. This relaxed approach and readyness to make mistakes will loosen you up and you'll make better art, and if you don't like it, it doesn't matter. Start again. Progress, not perfectionism. You might surprise yourself.
Are there any other creators in the textile art space you're inspired by?
I love Alice Kettle's work. I love her scale! I am trying to go BIG and I can't get my head around how she makes her work so huge.
What goals do you have for the future?
This year I am making an online teaching course, inspiring and teaching people how to make art with their sewing machine.
I'd like to continue to develop my art, going big scale-wise and finding interesting adventures and stories to share through my art. I'd love to find unusual exhibition spaces and play with how the audience experiences the art in an exhibition space.